WASHINGTON – Speculation that Saddam Hussein is dead or injured escalated yesterday after Iraqi state TV said he’d speak to the Iraqi people on television – but he was a no-show.

Instead of Saddam, the Iraqi information minister appeared to read a statement that he claimed came from Saddam, calling on Iraqis to launch a jihad and “seize the opportunity” to die as martyrs.

“The fact that Saddam Hussein did not show up for his televised speech is interesting,” said Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld.

“Where are the Iraqi leaders?” Rumsfeld asked.

Saddam Hussein and his two sons have vanished from sight – except on pre-taped TV video – since the Iraq war began March 19 with a massive airstrike against a leadership target where Saddam was believed hiding.

“Speculation keeps going back and forth between the idea that Saddam was lightly injured or very injured,” said a U.S. official.

Saddam’s sadistic older son Uday is believed either “very injured or dead,” the official added.

The Arabic-language TV station al-Jazeera yesterday carried the Iraqi announcement that Saddam would address the nation at noon New York time – when a stand-in appeared instead, Wall Street rallied shortly after noon.

Saddam’s TV no-show came amid the day after the Pentagon said members of his family, possibly his wife, were seeking to flee to Syria.

On Sunday, Saddam’s U.N. ambassador Mohammed al-Douri offered another curious clue when he was asked if Saddam is still alive and could offer no confirmation, saying instead: “I think that he is alive, of course, because we saw him several times on the TV.”

Saddam’s no-show could also have been a test for betrayal among close aides, said two U.S. officials who noted the Iraqi dictator is said to be so paranoid about betrayal from within that he never sleeps two nights in the same place.

Saddam – hiding deep in a bunker – could have told his inner circle that he planned a TV speech, maybe even said where, and then waited to see if there was a U.S. airstrike at that location, thus exposing an Iraqi mole.

Iraqi exile Khidhir Hamza, who once headed Saddam’s nuclear program and knew him personally, said the speech – despite its call for jihad – was actually pretty tame rhetoric for Saddam and doesn’t sound as if he wrote it.

“I think he’s either dead or he escaped. He has not been seen since the attack and he is chicken when it comes to his own safety. They are trying to give the idea that he is there when he is not,” Hamza said.

“Saddam’s speeches are much longer than this. One sentence can take 10 pages and there’s usually a lot of vitriol – not just calls to kill, kill, kill.”